End of Year One!

I can’t believe it’s the end of my first year at University already! Thank god for being a design student – NO EXAMS! Eeek 🙂

I have had such an amazing year, I don’t know how I can top it… oh wait, yeah I do – Year two! 😉

I had my feedback review yesterday with T-Fab and Glen. I was a nervous wreck! Trust me to have my review on Friday the 13th! Without trying to sound big headed, I knew I was going to get onto next year as I hadn’t failed any projects. I just wanted good grades soooooo badly! All of us had been working our bums off all year in the hope of reaching that golden grade, a 1st! Throughout the week I was hearing all these amazing grades people had achieved – the pressure was on!

For our review we had to produce a reflective log and 3 posters which illustrated our experience of the year.

When I saw I had Glen, I wanted to make a good impression. I even told Tim and Glen in the review, eek! We will have Glen as a tutor at some point in the future so it doesn’t hurt to make a good impression does it? 😉

For my log I decided to have a theme. When looking around my room I spotted an old school sweet shop jar and a lightbulb popped above my head – DING!

I chose to produce it in a booklet form, with 8 sides – 2 A3 pages folded into A5 size:

I went for candy stripes, mint greens, chocolate browns and some brown paper bag texture.

I decided to finish it off by actually making brown paper bags for the logs to stay in as I wasn’t binding the booklet together:

I cut out all of the little triangles to give it a proper paper bag feel!! In my review, Glen said I should have used pinking shears – HAHA! Yeah that would have been easier!

Jack thought I was a bit weird for wanting to do my photos in the grass, but I think it gives it quite an organic feel (with some strands of grass and a few shadows – I think it makes it more real?), something a bit different to the usual black or white background and also it was a lovely day so I took advantage 🙂

Above is the first double page spread, showing my before and after reflections.

Next (above) is the centrefold, which was a bit surplus to requirements so I decided to do a bit of shameless promo of the ol’ blog! Both tutors said they had visited my blog and Glen encouraged me to keep it up! (Of course I was going to anyway… I love blogging)

The last double page spread, I talk about my inspirations and how I think I can improve in the future…

…and the last page, the little birdy has left the bunting and is flying away with my sign ‘To be continued…’

I was really pleased with how my log turned out and you may have noticed the little birdy and owl perched on the bunting which I added for a bit of personality (and because I do liken myself to an owl due to my nocturnal behaviour)! The tutors said they liked the quirkiness, so I will try and incorporate some quirkiness into my work in the future!

For my posters I used 3 statements which I had learnt/thought were appropriate this year:

Don’t throw ideas away* * They might help you later

I added printed the poster out and then added the yellow lines around IDEAS to give it a bit of a crafty feel.

Make Your Mark – In pencil, I typographically illustrated all the different ways you could make your mark/ be successful

Inspiration is in everything – You just need to see it!

I prefer my log to my posters, but I prefer my grades to both 🙂

On Tuesday, I had completed the last part of CVP (Contextualising Visual Practice – basically the theory part of the course) by giving a group presentation with Lucy and Amber aka The Dream Team. We chose to analyse the semiotics behind David Beckham’s 2008 iconic Armani briefs advert.

I’m not sure how our audience felt about spending 10 mins looking at/listening to us analyse Beckham’s pants but the tutors seemed to like it – We got 74 which is a 1st! Eeeeek! Combine this with my essay mark (69) and overall I got a 1st for the CVP unit!

I was still waiting for feedback from two other projects which were handed in just before easter – The Beauty of Books (Book Cover) and Sonic Soundscapes (Which I haven’t posted about yet…). I have been desperate to get a 1st all year, so I was SO happy when I got a first for my Book Cover project! Eeeeeek! The other project, Sonic Soundscapes, I had felt a bit out of my comfort zone so was just going to be happy passing really but I got 64 (2:1) so really pleased with that!

The year is broken down into 3 units: Graphic Design, Visual Expression and CVP. Totalling up my module scores (GD=63, VE=63, CVP=72) my grade for Year 1 is… 66(unless it changes during moderation)! So a mid 2:1 – I’m really happy with that! First year doesn’t count towards our final degree, but I would be pretty happy if it did. I just have to try and maintain the same level and improve a bit for 2nd year and I am up for the challenge! I already miss the workload and I only finished yesterday… what am I going to do with 4 months off?

Just as a last note to this post… I hope everyone else on my course got the grades they wanted and that I will see you all back in Lincoln September time 🙂